Enumclaw 'Home in Another Life' (ALBUM REVIEW)

They couldn’t have known, could they? Enumclaw have long called themselves the “best band since Oasis”, and in the run up to the release of their second album the Gallagher brothers announced their big reunion out of the blue. A matter of hours before Home in Another Life hit the shelves, tickets for the Manchester legends’ UK tour went on sale. We’ll leave it to the conspiracy theorists from here.

To be honest, the Oasis comparison is best left right alongside the tongue – in cheek. Enumclaw specialise in fuzzed-out indie grunge which carries on the proud legacy of the sound formed just up the road in Seattle. Hailing from Tacoma, the four-piece rattle through 11 songs in a little over half an hour without breaking a sweat. This positions them firmly at the more melodic end of that plaid-clad grunge

sound which spread through American counterculture in the early 90s and sent would-be Cobains and Cornells into garages across the nation to thrash guitars they could barely play and sing/shout their hearts out.

 

‘Change’, the first single from the album, is a disarmingly simple track with echoes of the Smashing Pumpkins, and ‘Grocery Store’ sounds like a major-key Pixies with rambling lead lines and an excellent chorus, but opening track ‘I’m Scared I’ll End Up All Alone’ is the album in a nutshell – swirling guitars, heartfelt vocals, propulsive drums and an arm round the shoulder.

The band have found a formula which, if the Pacific Northwest hadn’t been churning out similar music for the last 30-odd years, they could comfortably call their own. But fronted by Aramis Johnson’s drawling vocals, which sometimes teeter captivatingly on the edge of dissonance, they really have carved out a tiny niche which mostly stands up to repeated listens.

 

There isn’t much variation across Home in Another Life, but taken as a whole it fits like a tattered but familiar knitted sweater. With the basics done well, and with a frontman to set them just apart from a scene lovingly built on nostalgia, it’s a pleasure to build a fort out of Enumclaw’s walls of sound and spend a long summer night in there.

 

Words by Joe Ponting

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